The 38th ICANN meeting currently underway has seen both the Public
Interest Registry and EURid both announce separately they will be
deploying Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) for the .ORG
and .EU top level domains respectively. The move will see increased
security for visitors to websites for the two TLDs.
In a press conference held today, the Public Interest Registry said they
are the first large TLD (with over eight million registrations) to
implement DNSSEC. The first domain name to be signed with DNSSEC was
isoc.org.
Meanwhile on Monday EURid announced it has deployed DNSSEC.
As EURid explained, DNSSEC is a protocol that verifies and validates
name server responses from the bottom up through a chain of trust,
thereby making the domain name system more secure. It can prevent
hackers from intercepting web traffic and redirecting it to fake
websites that can trick people into supplying personal information, such
as a counterfeit Internet banking site that looks like the real thing.
"At this time, few top-level domain registries support DNSSEC, but we
encourage all in the community to help Internet users by embracing this
protocol," comments Marc Van Wesemael, EURid's General Manager. He also
noted that the DNSSEC protocol is an important achievement for EURid,
which is constantly striving to improve the security of the domain names
it administers.
DNSSEC though does not come cheap, but there are many benefits to
consumers. DNSSEC will enable consumers to be certain they are visiting a
legitimate site, something that is especially important for banks and
even charities who have found there are people who will register domain
names and establish websites to take donations, especially in the case
of disasters as they happen around the world.
As Alexa Raad, CEO of .ORG, said at the ICANN meeting, being an early
pioneer means it was more expensive to deploy DNSSEC, something she
described as" not inexpensive".
Raad said DNSSEC deployments for .ORG will see registrars able to ensure
safer access to websites with three registrars making DNSSEC available
to their customers and another twelve in the pipeline.
"Motivation for doing this is to lead the industry and it need not be a
utopian vision," said Raad but she also noted that it is not something
that is likely to make a profit for .ORG.
At the .ORG news conference was Steve Crocker, Co-Chair of ICANN's
DNNSEC Deployment Initiative. He said that it took 18 or 19 years to
develop DNSSEC, "a lot longer than expected". But it was something that
had huge support and cooperation among industry players, something Dan
Kaminsky described as being amazing.
Looking to the future with new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) likely
to be announced in the next one to years, the question of cost arose.
But costs should fall significantly as the new technology is deployed
and it is likely DNSSEC -of-the-box programmes will be developed to help
existing and new registry operators implement DNSSEC. This will see
costs reduce rapidly as the "technology is not inherently expensive"
noted Crocker. The major costs have been in the development of the
technology.
To register your .EU or .ORG domain name, check out EuroDNS here.
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